Basketball (W) News

Postgame Quotes - Kansas State vs. Abilene Christian

Kansas State Head Coach and Players QuotesHead coach Jeff MittieOpening statement…“Well I thought offensively that we did some good things, especially early. I liked our ball movement and things offensively. Defensively I am still concerned with a lot of areas, but it got a little better as the night went on. I would not pay attention to it. They had a rough shooting night and I think that was a little more on them than us. Where we got better was having a little bit more discipline. We got some deflections and that was better. Rebounding is still a big concern, but all in all it was not bad. I think this was a good test for us. I was concerned coming in because they switched defenses and that requires a lot of communication because they switch back and forth and they try to disguise things. I felt that we would potentially struggle. But all in all I thought we did a pretty good job with recognition.”

On Megan Deines’ play against the zone…“I thought she had a good look. She does a good job of getting into the middle. That is an area I think that we have multiple players that are comfortable there, but Megan, I thought, had a real good feel in there. If we get the ball there with her, I think good things happen. She was able to get some passes but also score some buckets there.”

On the combination of outside-inside play…“I thought it was pretty good. Kaylee Page had seven assists and no turnovers and she was another player that we ran into the middle, so that was good. [Breanna] Lewis, they were fronting her, but I thought our guards made good passes. They tried to get some extra ball pressure but we made some pretty good passes and Lewis finished them at the end.”

On limiting Alexis Mason in the second half…“Yeah, we were better. I think our size gave them some trouble. I think as the game went on our length played better – we played better. Inside we fouled early, but I think we had a better gauge of how our length could play. And I think our guards did a better job of recognizing when they needed to get out to the shooters quicker. You are right, Mason had four [3-pointers] at half. I thought we did a great job on [Whitney] West . She came in here last year and had a great night against us so we did a much better job on her.

Senior Megan DeinesOn feeling more comfortable offensively…“Definitely. Like coach said, getting to the middle. We knew we were not going to run much of our offense, but as coach said, he wanted people to make plays so getting to the middle. Sometimes they came and guarded me so [Breanna] Lewis was wide open on the block. The middle was just wide open the whole game.”

On settling in the first half…“I guess. The three that I got fouled on, I literally threw it up and it went in and I got fouled. If it goes in, it goes in. But going in and out of the middle – and of course they started playing me tighter so I went out to shoot a three that went in – but in the end, my teammates found me. Without them, it is not like I could have made that many shots.”

Junior Breanna LewisOn her efficient night…“Yeah, I would say. We were just talking and looking at my rebounds – and it was good to be 9-for-12 but I feel like I am not satisfied within myself because I want to work on other things as far as rebounding. I feel like the guards were doing a great job of getting the ball to me, so it was just a great night overall.”

Abilene Christian Head Coach QuotesHead Coach Julie Goodenough

On getting out to the start they wanted…“It really did. I felt like our players were really ready to play in the first quarter. We took care of the ball and knocked down open shots. We got the ball inside and our post players went to the basket. In the second quarter we had a few turnovers that gave them the lead. I felt like we were still playing with them the second quarter, but in the second half it was pretty much all Kansas State. We were careless with the ball. We had so many opportunities to score and missed some great looks from the 3-point line. Our post players started altering their shot to try and get away from the contact. We went away from our game plan in the second half. We kind of went away from being aggressive and executing as well as we did in the first half.”

On K-State interior defense…“We just did not execute well in the second half. If a team is getting that many blocks, we probably need to be kicking it out. I think that when we did get by them defensively, we were still anticipating that contact and did not take shots like we do in practice every day. We got out of our game plan in the second half. I did not really feel like K-State changed anything that they were doing. Our players lost focus and were missing their focus on executing in the second half.”